This blog is a discussion of SCA fighting. I've been fighting in the SCA since 1979, I've won a crown and a coronet. The biggest knock on my fighting, according to one duke, is that I try to learn everything. This may be bad for my quest for strawberry leaves but it is good for the people who read my blog.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

BAT Practice and Birka

Wow.

Market Day at Birka was yesterday. It is the greatest fighting event in the SCA. No kidding. Prova is the most spectacular event, and I love the pageantry, but Birka does away with all of that and strips down to the essence of fighting. Lots and lots of fighting. There are over 3000 fights at Birka among roughly 150 fighters.

And I missed it. Life sucks.

But they do publish the results on the Norther Army site. Douglas Henry won after years of flirting with the top spot. He fought 123 fitghts and won 94. He didn't have the best winning percentage, but that's not what it takes to win Birka. You have to win the most number of fights. Vivat Douglas.

(my best rank at Birka was 24, and I peter out after a bit over 50 fights).

But the big news from our standpoint is that Oscad placed tied for fourth. (!!!) He won 82 out of 100 fights. Good Job Oscad!

It also meant that most everybody was at Birka. I went to BAT, fenced with Alexandre and Llewellyn (they both beat me soundly, but it was fun) and then I trained Nik, the only other heavy fighter there. It was a lot of fun.

I ended up using some Bellatrix techniques. We did slow work for awhile, then we fought, then we did drills. I wanted him to work on movement and striking. I taught him the double-strike to the leg with a lateral step to the right on the second strike. Then I taught him the onside head, offside leg with a lateral slide to the left. He used those two plus a simple one-two onside, offside head combo. We did the three combo drill, where he defends and has only the three combos he's allowed to throw, and the drill wins when he's thrown them. We did it twice. He said that it forced him to pay better attention to what I was doing and to look for an opening. He only killed me with them once, but his fight became much tighter.